Universal Pictures has released their 2010 movie preview, which included this first official photo from David Gordon Green‘s Your Highness, starring Danny McBride, James Franco, Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel. Check out the full photo after the jump, click to enlarge.

500 Days of Summer director Marc Webb has already completed his third collaboration with stars Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt (the second has already graced these pages in full).

Of course, they haven’t had time to make another feature but instead, what they’ve cooked up is a music video for the She & Him track Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? (The She in this case is Ms. Deschanel, the Him M. Ward).

The video is currently available exclusively at USA Today though it is set to spread to other venues – ie. those dusty corners of MTV where music videos still play – pretty soon. This cross-promotion takes me back to the days when a Bryan Adams video would have done the world of good for a Kevin Costner movie at the box office, and said Costner movie would have done Adams bank balance just as big a favour.

David Gordon Green , James Franco and Danny McBride are following their stoner action movie Pineapple Express with a stoner medieval comedy called Your Highness, and Zooey Deschanel has just joined the cast. Shooting starts this month in Northern Ireland, according to THR, with Natalie Portman also in the picture. Read More »

Mean Magazine has created a new series of online short films called CineMash, which lets celebrity talent mash up their favorite scenes from classic movies. The first is a recreation of a scene from Sid and Nancy starring Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and directed by Marc Webb (the director of 500 Days of Summer). Did I mention that Joe plays Nancy and Zooey plays Sid? Watch the clip after the jump, followed by a listing of future Cinemash episodes.Read More »

One of the many reasons I loved 500 Days of Summer is the clever screenwriting. And by clever writing I don’t mean overwritten dialogue ala Diablo Cody, but fantastic story beats that take full advantage of the film medium. Fox Searchlight has released a new clip which perfectly illustrates what I’m talking about. As you might already know, the film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom, a hapless greeting card copywriter and hopeless romantic, who is blindsided after his girlfriend Summer (Zooey Deschanel) dumps him (this is how the movie begins), he shifts back and forth through various periods of their 500 days “together” (hence the title) to try to figure out where things went wrong.

The video clip after the jump takes place after Tom and Summer reconnect after the breakup, and Tom is invited to a party at his ex-girlfriend’s house. Tom, of course, thinks this is an opportunity to rekindle their relationship, but as you might expect, expectations and reality diverge. Screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael Weber have expertly crafted a scene that I believe is so brilliant, that it makes you wonder why no one had come up with this concept prior. Everyone has encountered this situation at one point in their life, and everyone knows how it feels – yet I’ve never seen a movie portray the feeling so accurately, visually, without employing a ton of exposition before hand. The scene in the movie goes on a bit longer, and has more of a dramatic effect on the story (as you might expect, reality gets worse). The sequence works better in the context of the film, but you’ll get the point. Watch the clip embedded after the jump.

Fox Searchlight has released a new clip from 500 Days of Summer. This is the film I really fell in love with this year at Sundance. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tom, a hapless greeting card copywriter and hopeless romantic, who is blindsided after his girlfriend Summer (Zooey Deschanel) dumps him, he shifts back and forth through various periods of their 500 days “together” to try to figure out where things went wrong. This clip is from a sequence early on in their relationship as they visit an IKEA furniture store. Watch the clip after the jump.Read More »

Fox Searchlight has finally released a full length movie trailer for Marc Webb‘s indie post-modern romantic comedy (500) Days of Summer. The Sundance Film Festival sensation tells the story of a love story, in a way you’ve never seen it before. When a greeting card copywriter named Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is dumped by the love of his life, a magical girl named Summer (Zooey Deschanel), he takes a look back at their 500 days “together” to try to figure out where things went wrong. I gushed all over this movie at Sundance (read my review here).

The trailer begins much like the movie begins, with fairy tale like narration. You’ll get brief glimpse at some of the more non-traditional visual storytelling techniques that Webb employs (dream sequences, split screens, and even a dance number) and also gives you a brief listen to the film’s incredibly hip soundtrack (track listing here). The trailer comes off as a little cliche (which is strange since the film is the opposite of generic) and I still don’t think it plays up the aspect of the film that makes it so unique – the fact that the movie jumps between the past and the future to help explain how the couple fell in love and what, if anything, went wrong. Watch the trailer after the jump and leave your thoughts in the comments below.Read More »

Last week we posted two video clips from Mark Webb’s 500 Days of Summer, which premieres later tonight at the Sundance Film Festival (check back for our take). Fox Searchlight has now released an official teaser trailer, which you can watch after the jump.

On my adventures today, I was also able to secure two video clips from Mark Webb‘s 500 Days of Summer.

In the first clip, Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) talks about how his failure in architectural design lead to a job writing greeting cards and we learn Summer’s (Zooey Deschanel) shocking college nickname. And the next clip features a conversation where Summer compares her relationship with Tom to Sid and Nancy.

A FirstShowing spy who saw an early test screening called the film the best movie he’s seen over the last year. That’s pretty high praise. 500 Days of Summer is one of my most anticipated films of this year’s Sundance film festival. Fox Searchlight is distributing the film, and it seems like any film that mini-major touches (most recently Slumdog Millionaire and The Wrestler) turns to gold. I’m screening the film on Sunday, so check back for my take. But for now, you can watch the two video clips after the jump.Read More »

Warner Bros has released the second full trailer for Jim Carrey‘s new comedy Yes Man. This seems like a comedy that would have been made ten years ago, and that’s not a compliment. It’s all high concept and not many laughs. And it doesn’t help that Jim Carrey hasn’t made a truly funny film in the last decade. At this point I’d rather see him make more movies like Eternal Sunshine, The Truman Show, Man on the Moon and even The Majestic. Zooey Deschanel is the main love interest but appears in the trailer for only a few seconds. Watch the trailer after the jump. Leave your thoughts in the comments below.